May 10, 2012

Both candidates draw overwhelming support from voters in their respective parties. Walker holds a 51% to 43% lead over Barrett among voters not affiliated with either political party. Men prefer Walker by a 58% to 40% margin, while women favor Barrett 50% to 43%....

IN THE COMMENTS: jeffmacguy asks:

[C]an someone with some Wisconsin insight please tell me how these people are going to react when Walker wins big? I mean, I know their heads won't literally explode, but I suspect some of the folks who were unhinged during last years sit-ins will react poorly when they realize that there's nothing they can do.

I believe a process of pre-closure is already very far along. I think a year ago, people were cranked up over the potential for a recall, and there were some satisfying steps along the way: initiating the petition drive, collecting signatures, filing "over a million" signatures, getting 900,000+ signatures declared valid, and — the climax — getting the recall election certified.

Since then, it's been kind of a drag. Kathleen Falk's pledge to the unions pulled her down. The Blandness of Barrett moved in and caused everyone to understand he was inevitable. I think people stopped putting so much of a stake in the ultimate outcome. They see the defeat coming, not surely yet, but looming in the near distance. They're prepared.

Ah, well, we fought long and hard. We had the glory of the battle. We didn't let Walker have his way without a fight. We called him to account. We made him uneasy. We achieved our goals. The recall election itself was the moral victory. Barrett would not have been able to change anything anyway. Better to be on the outside, criticizing Walker, than to witness Barrett's incapacity to undo Walker's damage.

They will turn away, hiding their disappointment and saying: "The grapes are sour, and not as ripe as I thought."

Not assuming anything here... consider this a hypothetical, but can someone with some Wisconsin insight please tell me how these people are going to react when Walker wins big? I mean, I know their heads won't literally explode, but I suspect some of the folks who were unhinged during last years sit-ins will react poorly when they realize that there's nothing they can do. (assuming that WI doesn't allow perpetual recall petitions...)Any thoughts?

Jeffmacguy, they'll probably start preparing to try to recall Walker again in 2016. They can't try to recall him more than once a term, so look for them to start thinking about what to do if he runs again and wins in 2014.

Likely voter polls are the only reliable polls. The liberal media don't like them because they prefer to use polls to influence voters to vote for the liberal candidates and usually likely voter polls don't advance their agenda.

Walker already has nearly 700,000 votes in his pocket (we know a lot of Republicans voted in the Dem primary and we know virtually no Dems crossed over to vote for Walker), based on the primary. And that is when there was literally no urgency for his supporters to vote for him.

The teachers' adjustment to life without 20 years of collective bargaining clout to draw high salary, cadillac health insurance plans and early fully vested pensions will be a long period of adjustment.

But eventually they will organize again around a fiery leader who promises to bring back the old days.

The funds that Walker has left over from fighting the recall effort cannot be used in recall election. How will they be used? It would surely help others in 2012 WI elections.WV- irepub tedskiI am republican, but who is ted?

The action on Intrade has been interesting. Walker peaked at a 72% chance of winning the recall on May 1. Then from May 2 to May 5, the volume of contracts traded was abnormally large which pushed his probably of winning to below 60%. Now today he's back up to about 64%. If you believe the collective view of the Intrade "market", it still thinks his chances are slightly worse today than they were about 10 days ago.

Something appears to have happened between May 2 and May 6 that changed Intrade participants perceptions about Walker's chances for the worse, but I can't figure out what it was. Here's the chart:

can someone with some Wisconsin insight please tell me how these people are going to react when Walker wins big?I suspect that if/when a Walker win occurs, there will be a call from some quarters for a "general strike". That idea has been bandied about for a while among the more militant labor voices here. There might even be some wildcat work stoppages or blue flus. But in general, calling a general strike would be a tremendous mistake for the left, because it would be a miserable failure. But what else is there?

Something appears to have happened between May 2 and May 6 that changed Intrade participants perceptions about Walker's chances for the worse, but I can't figure out what it was

Maybe it was a reaction that leading up to the primary, all indicators were showing that:1) Barrett had a better chance of winning against Walker in the recall.2) Barrett looked like he would be the winner of the primary.

Thus, the Intrade speculators were feeling confident that the outcome of the primary would be that the candidate who will beat Walker would be selected.

You seem to put a lot of faith in Intrade - what is their accuracy in predicting winners & losers versus polls? Are the Intrade participants "people in the know" or just "wanna-be day traders" who don't have the cajones to be in the stock market?

I suspect that if/when a Walker win occurs, there will be a call from some quarters for a "general strike". That idea has been bandied about for a while among the more militant labor voices here. There might even be some wildcat work stoppages or blue flus. But in general, calling a general strike would be a tremendous mistake for the left, because it would be a miserable failure. But what else is there?"

No way in hell this will happen. They can blow their horns and bang on their drums but the vast majority of public workers know that life outside of their government job is not one they want to entertain.

Races tend to tighten closer to the election; I see at most it will be a "landslide" of Obama/McCain proportions, but no greater. So, if Barrett wins, it will be a mandate and a landslide; if Walker wins it will just be a win.

The Dems will rise again. However, they do need to find someone who will appeal to the entire state. Madison liberals and Milwaukee mayors are not those people.

The Dems will win elections in WI when they are once again trusted by those who don't work for government. They have spent the last 15 months pigeonholing themselves and are now at the last minute figuring out that doesn't work.....not that their realization is nothing more than strategy and not a true reckoning.

Wisconsin put up with douchebaggery from Brett Favre for 5 years longer than they should have. Maybe they want to see more than 1 year from Walker, lame jobs/growth record notwithstanding. If Walker wins I don't see him being more than a lame duck, he won't have the legislature to pass anything significant. He's incapable of working with others, so I doubt he'll enjoy that experience. That, and people finding out what exactly he spent 260,000 [so far] on lawyers for. Interesting the 12th person granted immunity was a retired judge with close contacts to the realtor industry. Wonder what that's all about?

"Ah, well, we fought long and hard. We had the glory of the battle. We didn't let Walker have his way without a fight. We called him to account. We made him uneasy. We achieved our goals. The recall election itself was the moral victory."

IF Walker wins, can we please send these people the bill? Wasn't the estimated cost of this election $16M? Divide that by the petition signers and it only comes to about $25 apiece. Fair's fair.

The reason I like Intrade is because people are putting money behind their opinions. My theory is that there are two kinds of people who make bets on Intrade: 1) people with an information edge, like campaign insiders, internal pollsters, strategists, etc. and; 2) degenerate gamblers.

Now, with regard to the first group, I honestly don't know if they are permitted to play. Maybe election law prohibits their participation, or maybe their employment agreements with the candidate's campaign prohibits it. But my theory has been that if insiders with an information edge ARE ALLOWED to make Intrade wagers, then whatever the Intrade market is on any given day is probably slightly better info than polling data. That's why I watch what happens there.

If "the market" is only degenerate gamblers following hunches or published public polling or just betting on who they want to win, then I doubt there's any superior info in the Intrade data.

Walker will win by three percent (five percent if the illegal votes are netted out-which they won't be).

There are huge rallies for Walker scheduled in locations throughout Wisconsn for the two weeks leading up to the election. The base will be highly energized and motivated to vote.

Will there be any rallies for Barrett? Not likely, unless eight people standing in front of his house in Milwaukee counts as a rally. Barrett doesn't want to be seen with the people he hopes will cast their votes for him.

Look for the Dems to hold their spending on this campaign. They have a brutal presidential election coming up in November, and Wisconsin is a battleground state. That's where the money and effort will be expended, not on Tom Barrett's failed third attempt to become governor.

By the way, did you see the news that Eric Hovde is now polling within three points of Tommy Thompson?

My concern is with control of the state senate; Van Wangaard is facing a tough challenge from Jim Lehman in the Racine district. The Dems only need to win one seat to gain control of the Senate and stymie Walker.

This recall was supposed to be a show of union strength and Falk was their standard bearer. She was crushed in the primary, even with help from 100,000 Republican crossover votes.

The unions slaved over getting out the vote while Walker only said the Sunday before the election that he hoped people would come out in a show of strength. Walker still got almost as many votes as the Democrats, even when 100,000 Republican crossovers are included in the Democrats total. I guarantee you that professional campaign people are sweating bullets over that.

This election will strengthen Walker and make him Presidential timber. Regular Wisconsin people will adapt; the others can go to Illinois.

I was in the Phoenix airport bar about 4 years ago and David Carradine walked in for a drink - he had one vodka on the rocks I believe. He was annoyed when they asked him for ID - that bar has a rule that it cards 100% of the patrons no matter how old you may look.

still want to know why so few democratic votes were cast compared to the recall petition. There had to have been one massive amount of fraud. tim

I think this was discussed here yesterday & like I said, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 400,000 of the signers had not voted in 2010. They can't all be people who were not 18 years old 1 1/2 years ago.

And as others brought up, there would be people who signed "just because" - maybe they sign anything put in front of them, or maybe they felt socially obligated to sign (circulator was friend, relative, co-worker, etc.).

That's why I don't think a push to get all those UW students to request absentee ballots so they can vote when they go back "home' for the summer will have much impact. Much harder to do then just sign a paper at the campus quad.

That's why I don't think a push to get all those UW students to request absentee ballots so they can vote when they go back "home' for the summer will have much impact. Much harder to do then just sign a paper at the campus quad.

True. It is difficult going broke betting on the laziness of college kids.

I propose we give the anticipated surplus to the public sector unions.

Wis. gov says state has budget surplus

MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Republican Gov. Scott Walker's administration says new revenue projections show the state will finish the 2011-2013 biennium with a $154.5 million surplus.

The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimated in February the state would finish the 2-year period with a $143 million deficit. But Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch wrote in a letter to Walker on Thursday that personal income growth has been stronger than anticipated and the state now expects to collect $265 million more in taxes than the Legislative Fiscal Bureau expected.

The developments are good news for Walker, who faces Democrat Tom Barrett in a June 5 recall election. Democrats are trying to oust Walker from office as payback for proposing a contentious law stripping most public workers of nearly all their union rights.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

One factor to consider is that there were over 37,000 votes against the State Senate candidates that were likely cast by Republicans or independents crossing over to vote for Falk. The likelihood of those votes being cast for Walker next month is high. Those votes should factor in somewhere.

This will still be a tossup race IMO. One guy I thought was very conservative I found out voted Barrett yesterday because he thinks Walker will lose and didn't want the radical Falk winning. And this guy himself is not sure he'll vote for Walker or not in the general.

Of course canceling that out was a conservative in-law who told me that he voted for Falk and Ira Robbins, because he thought that was what the conservatives were supposed to do. i.e. vote for the weakest Gov and Lt. Gov candidates. This guy will 100% vote Walker/Kleefisch in the general even though the other day his support was counted under the "D" column.

By the way, for those concerned about losing the State Senate, it is possible the Senate shifts control if Van loses to Lehman in that recall race in Racine.

However, five months later in November, the R's have strong pickup possibilities with the Jen Schilling seat and the vacated Jim Holperin seat. Assuming the R's still have their 2010 momentum going, it could likely be 18-15 GOP in the State Senate come November.

Additionally the Wangaard seat will go to its new geographic redistricting mode come fall 2014 and Van will easily win that seat back then if for some reason he loses next month.

Here's my unsolicited advice to Wisconsin. Use this opportunity to rework your "recall" laws because they are silly and bear no relation to the concept of a recall. How is this anything other than a new election at an odd, unscheduled time? Democratic primaries? Republican primaries? What does that have to do with a recall? It's simply a new do-over election called by sore losers. If you're going to have a recall make it a real recall and focus, focus, focus. Has the subject of the recall done something that makes him no longer fit for office? If so, then remove him. If not, move on. That's a recall. What's going on in Wisconsin is simply a poor excuse for a new, expensive, unscheduled election.

Walker balanced the 3.6 billion dollar budget deficit without raising tax and without massive layoffs. His reforms saved hundreds of millions when school districts were able to select a lower cost insurer for the same level of coverage. The Teacher's Unions own metrics show that the vast majority of school systems are in better fiscal shape, so they can put more money into the classroom.

How is Barrett going to balance the budget again? What is the unemployment rate in Milwaukee? How has Barrett improved Milwaukee schools, which are among the bottom 10 in the country? Can Barrett get his own city hall repaired in under 8 years? Why do the roads in Milwaukee all suck? Why didn't Barrett speak up for mining jobs for Caterpillar and P&H?

It's a fact of life that the looselugnut libruls cannot abide Rasmussen's challenge to their hegemony over polling. His polling statistics show a remarkable correlation with the voting outcomes in comparison to those of his competitors.

In a reality-based world, that is normally called 'accuracy'. This is not world in which Garage has any passing acquaintance. In the Garage world, it's more about manipulating the outcomes and deflecting attention when it fails.